


metal and concrete filling up my head

by Anniely



Series: REBOOT [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: AU after If-Then-Else, Alternate Universe, Amnesia, Brainwashing, F/F, Shaw as Bucky AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3758257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anniely/pseuds/Anniely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melt me down, let's start again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ground zero

There's a constant feeling, under her skin, at the edge of her mind, in her fingertips, that she has forgotten something. She checks her weapons, all six of them, and packs an additional grenade. The feeling stays, like an itch and it annoys her, because she cannot shoot it away or cut if off; she doesn't even know what _it_ is, or why it feels so damn important to figure it out. All she knows is that it's interfering with her programming, making her mind stop and stumble at irregular intervals, her thoughts jumbling and jumping.

 

Something to do with a tree – a dog – concrete walls – whiskey – laughter – shooting – pain – _No!_ – pain – pain – pain.

 

The pain's her companion, her beginning, a now barely noticeable buzzing, emanating from the left side of her torso. She has been told (she only remembers pain, nothing else) that she was injured during a mission, shot multiple times, her injuries so severe that all the doctors could do was try to hold her together by any means possible.

 

Her left side, under her dark t-shirt and leather jacket, is metal. Shiny plates forming a perfect piece of armor.

 

A part of her is made from metal, and some days it feels like her mind is as well. Iron-hard and impenetrable. The pictures she sees on the backs of her eyelids sometimes – are those pancakes? – bounce around in her metal brain, creating a clanking sound like shell casings from her rifle hitting the asphalt.

She has never told the doctors or her handlers about the malfunction (books – two guns – gauze) in her brain, even though it's against protocol; she's supposed to report when she is not working correctly and then go to the lab for recalibration.

 

She doesn't have a past, or a family, or a name. She has a mission and a number, although they only use it in official meetings; usually, they simply call her _the Agent_. But these pictures, these barely-there memories, this notion that she likes dogs and pancakes, are hers. They are the faintest trace of who she was (or might be?).

 

 

* * *

 

 

Root goes through the motions of each of her new lives like a sleepwalker, barely noticing the changing names or faces she puts on. She has an aim, a cause that keeps her going, even when she is running on two hours of sleep and three large cups of coffee again. She knows that Harold looks at her sideways, eying her pale face and dark circles with an expression that he usually reserves for Bear chewing up one of his precious first editions again.

She ignores it, for the most part, letting her hair fall into her face, turning her head away, focusing on the code in front of her. She doesn't need concern, she doesn't need pity.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The door to the van opens, sunlight and a few snowflakes drifting in.

 

'You're up, Agent,' her handler says (she probably has a name, the blond woman, but they don't tell their names to the Agent).

 

She looks up and nods. Before she stands up, she scratches at the point on her shoulder where the metal meets flesh. The buzzing from the pain intensifies and it takes her thoughts away from the itching and the metal-on-stone sound. There's no place for pancakes here, not when there's a mission to be focused on.

 

 

Whenever she is to be moved, they put her on a gurney, tying her down with padded belts, and hook her up to an IV filled with a crystal liquid that drops into her veins at a steady pace. Every drop makes her eyes heavier, and the sound of blood rushing in her ears louder, until the light of the ceiling lamps engulfs her.

The Agent always wakes up as someone she has no recollection of becoming. But they are there, waiting for her with her weapons and the rest of her gear and she takes the familiar weight in her hands and when they tell her _Shoot this man_ , she does.

 

 

There have been many mission before this one, men and women, old and young. She doesn't count them, doesn't even know why they have to die. She is a weapon, after all, and a good one at that. And weapons don't have a conscience, so she pulls the trigger, never once hesitating.

 

 

She looks up, as she jumps out of the van. Even if she hadn't been told that the mission would take her to New York, she would have known the minute the van had come out of the tunnel, the sounds of the city suddenly enveloping her like an old, favorite blanket.

The Agent adjusts the strap of the duffle that contains her rifle. The mission briefing before the transport had been short. Her handler had given her coordinates to an office building and showed her a grainy picture of a dark-haired woman with long legs.

 

'The target will be in the east-facing office. Time frame: Ten Minutes. Mission objective: Eliminate target. Confirm mission objective, Agent.'

 

She confirms. She always confirms.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Root is standing at this window in an office that's not hers, wearing clothes that aren't hers, looking out at a street filled with people she doesn't know and doesn't care about enough to want to know and thinks _I could stop. I could drown myself in the Hudson. I could walk out into the street and let them shoot me_.

It's a comforting thought, somehow, the knowledge that it's her decision to walk up to Samaritan and say _We will never be yours. Even our deaths won't be yours_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The cameras that are pointed at the service entrance can be bypassed easily and it takes her less than twenty seconds to pick the lock. She takes two stairs at a time up to the roof, welcoming the way the exertion makes her heart beat faster. By the time she has made it to the top (six minutes and thirty-two seconds later), the wind that hits her the moment she pushes open the door makes her shiver, but her mind is clear.

It takes no more than a few practiced moves, she has been trained hard – _Faster, faster, faster!_ –, to put her rifle together. She goes into position at the edge of the roof, the street a long drop below her.

 

Through her scope, she has a direct line of sight into the target's office, a small, but uncluttered room painted in a light blue color. Her target is sitting at her desk, a laptop in front of her, typing away at a speed that is only acquired after years of working at a computer. The Agents glances at the computer screen for a second, but the lines and lines of code don't mean anything to her (for some strange reason, they calm her, even though the noise level in her head rises).

 

The Agent breathes out and aims. She doesn't have a completely unobstructed view, the top half of the target's head is cut off by the window, but she has managed more difficult tasks. Shots in the dark or through walls. She even managed to hit someone with a throwing knife, once, over shoulder and while running away.

She focuses on the wind for a second, calculating just how much it's going to influence her shot, when the target gets up to stand in front of the window, arms crossed like she is warding off a draft.

 

Her scope brings her closer to the target's face and the Agent realizes that she's wearing a black wig (wrong color, the Agent thinks, and doesn't know why; auburn would be better). She takes in all the soft, unprotected spots; there are fourteen ways to kill the target with a single shot. Her programming is a low, constant drumming. _Take the shot_. _Take the shot_. _Take the shot_.

 

For some reason she finds herself thinking _Get away from the window_ , her finger hovering over the trigger.

 

 

Her time frame is down to one minute and fourteen seconds.

 

 _Take she shot_.

 

She is a weapon, after all.

 

 

She woke up that time after her operation without any memories and the feeling of something soft and warm pressing against her lips. She didn't want to open her eyes, but revel in the sensation and the knowledge that she had let someone so close.

The pain hits her like a wave, throwing her sideways and pulling her under. The feeling disappears, it's like she can see it being buried, and she wants to shout out, but she doesn't remember what.

 

 

The Agents closes her eyes for a moment (one minute and eight seconds).

 

 

* * *

 

 

Root smiles. She can almost hear Shaw groan. _God, Root, stop being so melodramatic. And get away from the window_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Agent takes the shot.


	2. minor scale

She wonders, sometimes, when she is lying on her cot, counting away the seconds until there is light again (she doesn't sleep: there are pills, all of them white, that chase away any fatigue she might feel. The only unconsciousness she knows is the deep darkness brought on by the needle), if they have installed some kind of self-destruct contingency: a dead-man switch – switch then death.

 

She is a weapon, after all. Every weapon needs a safety (switch). And human brains, especially, need to be kept in check, monitored, because they are prone to creative thinking and known to go against their programming.

 

She doesn't hesitate, she never misses; her programming is flawless. A kill switch wouldn't make a difference.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Root's faith is persevering; she doesn't waver, she doesn't doubt.

 

When she gets told to stop, she stops. She goes into a park and sits on a bench until the light fades and comes again, fades and comes again. She doesn't move a muscle.

 

She stops.

 

It's her way of defying God.

 

But God finds her, of course, how could she not, and reminds her that she was chosen for a job that was never supposed to be easy; that was never supposed to be painless.

 

Root reaches for the scar behind her ear, feeling the bump of metal under skin. It is real, in the same way Sam's toothbrush in her bathroom is real. Pressing down hurts, but it reminds her that pain exists for a reason, and that God has never made her suffer without reason.  
  
There's blood seeping out between her fingers, staining her clothes. She's looking at the ceiling and doesn't know how she got there. She's bleeding and she doesn't know why (there must be a reason?).

 

There's a ringing in her ears that might be sirens; she's not sure.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She watches just long enough to see the woman crumble to the floor, her long hair fanning out around her like a black cloud, mirroring the blood that pools under her.

In the distance, she can hear the sirens. There are always sirens; she wonders if they ever make a difference.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her mother used to sing to her, softly, after tucking her into bed.

 

_Good night, Sammy_ , she would say and leave the door open a tiny crack.

 

One night, her father came instead of her mother, his face drawn, his eyes sad.

 

_I'm sorry, Sa_ _mantha_ , he said. There were tears on his face. _I'm so sorry._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Two hours later (the longest she has been unbound in what feels like forever), after making sure that she isn't being followed (she spent almost half an hour in a subway toilet, breathing through her mouth, cutting out one tracker from her arm and one from her leg. Two more were sewn into her clothes; now she has holes in her jacket and the back of her jeans), she regroups across the street from her new target. Her rifle's stored behind a dumpster, her hair stuffed under a black beanie she stole out of the bag of some hipster kid trying, and failing miserably, to make something resembling music on his guitar.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She's always wanted her name to be Hannah, to have dark curly hair and to be noticed when she walked into a room.

 

She has read _Flowers for Algernon_ ten times; she's the mouse and she's Charly, she's little pixels at the top of a leader board.

 

* * *

 

 

It's too damn easy, she thinks, to get into the building. It makes her skin crawl, all the blind spots and people walking in and out without proper security checks. There's a single guard loitering around near the entrance; he has a taser on his belt, but he's barely sparing anyone but the woman at the information desk so much as a second glance. It gives her cover, all the oblivious people moving into the building like a strange, many-limbed animal, making it possible for her to slip into a break room and steal a lab coat and random med chart without anyone noticing. She'd still prefer less dark corners and fewer strangers who might turn out to be covert agents; some of the best agents who had trained her had looked remarkably harmless.

 

The smell of soap and disinfectant that clings to walls and clothes hits her and unleashes a strange mix of memories and feelings that settle themselves somewhere in her stomach. It's grounding, in a way she can't explain, in a way that the smell of gunpowder and a gun in her hand are. Solid, real, something that can't be faked.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Root used to wake up (when her hair was shorter and six-figure deposits to her bank account didn't yet make up for the blood she had to wash off her hands, out of her clothes) in the middle of the night, to the feeling of a cold muzzle pressed against her cheek.

 

Click – _bam_! – then, nothing.

 

There's no sound now – no voice in her ear – no sirens.

 

Just nothing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She looks down at the woman and wants to turn tail and run, back to her handler, begging for her mind to be wiped, to be scrubbed clean.

 

She learns, in that moment, what pain without injury feels like, that you can hurt like you are being ripped apart without anyone touching you.

 

Something with a tree –

 

She slings her arms around her middle, trying to keep from falling apart into a thousand little, aching pieces.

 

She looks at the woman and breathes 'Root', and feels like throwing up, as pictures flash before her eyes like Fourth of July fireworks, each of them making her hurt more and less at the same time.

 

_The voices are there, you just have to listen_.

 

She claps her hands over her ears. There has always been just one voice.

 

_You are a weapon_.

 

She grabs her gun without meaning to, but the metal, for the first time, feels wrong in her palm, her skin itching uncomfortably from the contact.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A car is burning and she can't feel a thing; she goes to find herself a sandwich.

 

 

 

She kills a man in the dead of night and buries him in the park; she doesn't feel a thing.

 

 

 

A flat iron – two guns – zip ties; she can definitely feel this.

 

 

* * *

 

 

'Sameen?'

 

Softly, almost inaudible. It makes everything stop.

 

The Agents feels like she has just been restarted. She is completely gone (again) and yet she is (Sameen? Who is that? _Me_. Who _is_ that?).

 

'Sameen?' the woman says again, her voice raspy and laced with pain and then she _smiles_.

 

 

 

She is lying in a hospital bed because of what the Agent/She/Sameen has done, pale, and hooked up to machines, and she smiles.

The Agent/She/Sameen feels herself tremble and holster her gun. And then, like some other programming has taken her over, she feels the corners of her mouth lift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Shaw is Bucky, then Root is Cap (Finch would be Iron Man and John Natasha. You can't fight me on this.).
> 
> And I might, if the stars align correctly, maybe continue this ...


End file.
